Growing up, April had a nice brother and Christian parents—her mom had been saved when she was very young; her dad became a Christian after he married April’s mom—and life was rather normal for April when she was very young. However, when she became a teenager, she started to think more about God. The world was becoming a “bigger and scarier” place for her, and she began to think and ask questions about what she believed.
Perhaps because she did not have Christ in her heart, April was very vulnerable to the evil influences around her. One day, as she walked into one of her classrooms early, she noticed a group of young people gathered together in one area of the room. She didn’t know what they were doing, but she had a bad feeling about what was going on. Later she found out that the kids gathered there were devil worshippers. This scared her, to say the least.
During that time, April’s dad, a commercial fisherman, was gone on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. Whenever her dad had gone away before, April had gotten sick, perhaps because she was often so worried about him. This time was no exception, and her dad was gone for quite a while. During that time, everything—the questions about life and God, the worry about her dad, and the fear from what she had seen at school—cumulated together to drag on her.
Things became much worse, and for the next three years, April lived in torture. “Everywhere I looked was evil,” she said, “I never felt safe.” Only when she was with her mom, literally hanging on to her everywhere they went, did she feel more secure. In a way, April said, her mom was like her god. Her mom had always been a source of comfort to her, something April relied on.
However, April’s mom was not always there. As she was sitting in math class one day, April heard a wolf howling. She remembers being scared but having nowhere to go.
April read the Bible constantly, “like a madman,” carrying her Bible around everywhere she went. Now, as she looks back, she finds it odd that she never realized the truth contained in its pages. One day, she read a verse that talks about saying simply “yes” or “no” (Matthew 5:37). She decided to apply that verse to her thought life, since she had been struggling with wrong thoughts. She started to reject, or say “no” to, every wrong thought she had and to say “yes” to, or accept, good thoughts that came into her mind. It helped her a lot.
Later, April noticed she was hearing an annoying sound drone on and on and didn’t know where it was coming from. Then, as she was sitting in class one day, her teacher looked down at her with an expression of horror. That seemed odd enough, but as her teacher looked down at her, April closed her mouth and the annoying sound stopped. Later she realized that out of habit she had been droning on and on to herself “No, no, no, no, no….”
One day as she rounded the corner of her dresser in her room, all of the voices inside her head were silenced and everything that had been torturing her for so long suddenly stopped completely. April felt that in that moment several people were praying specifically for her. But then, a few seconds later, the noise and the regular burden of life came back to her, and her torment resumed.
As time went on, everything that had been happening to April started to pile up. The questions in her head kept coming. She recalls feeling like a vapor—she felt that she wasn’t really there physically at all and that something could just pass right through her. It was as if there was a huge hole inside of her.
Even though most of what had been happening to April had to do with her mind, it became obvious to her mom that April was having problems. April’s dad had been gone for an especially long time, so her mom wrote to her dad and got him to call home with the help of a coastguard. He told her that he was close by and asked her if she could hold on until he got home.
“Yeah, Dad, I’ve been holding on for a long time,” she replied.
Dad came home. He knew what was going on and asked her several questions. Before, she had always lied to him, and he expected her to lie again. This time, however, she told him the truth.
“Have you ever tried drugs?” he asked.
“No.” (She laughed because he knew she was even afraid to take aspirin.)
“Did you have a change in diet?”
“No.”
Finally, after a few more questions, he asked,
“Have you ever been saved?”
“No.”
He didn’t reject her or kick her out of the house for saying no. He simply told her, “Run and get the Bible.”
April was excited; he thought there was hope! She had, for a while, believed that she was simply born a non-Christian and therefore could never be saved.
Her dad read several verses, including some verses from the tenth chapter of Romans: “…if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified….” (Romans 10:9-10 NIV)
When April heard the sentence “it is with your heart that you believe…” (emphasis added), she suddenly realized that being a Christian is about having a relationship with God.
“The Lord reached me right there,” April told me. That was when she finally realized the truth and was ready to receive Christ into her life. Her dad helped her with a suggested, simple prayer of a few words.
She finally called on the Lord, asking Jesus to save her, calling on His name. (She thought it odd that she had never before called on Jesus’ name, even though she grew up in a Christian home.) She asked God into her heart. That day, the heavy burden that had been weighing her down for so long was finally lifted, and the internal turmoil that had been plaguing her was taken away. It was completely gone. “I felt brand-new,” April told me.
April realized that now, with Jesus, she had a friend that she could always talk with. She would never have to be alone again. She stopped hanging on to her mom, no longer needing that kind of security from a human being.
April admits that she has gotten scared since then and had a few phobias, but she does not live in fear like she used to do. “Fear was my middle name,” she said about her life before asking Christ into her life. Now she doesn’t have to fear.
During the spiritual battles that followed her salvation experience, April relied on God’s Word. She looked in the Bible for help when she needed it. She still does. The Bible is a weapon for believers to use; it is life-giving and life-saving truth with power to free the most burdened, oppressed soul.
Satan lies to us (he did to her). April told me that she had gotten the idea that there was no hope because she was born a non-Christian and could never be saved. (She had previously believed that she was a Christian simply because her parents were Christians.)
But the truth is that no one can see the kingdom of God without being “born again.” (John 3:3) We, as humans, must be born into God’s family, through Christ. When we receive Christ into our lives, we experience true life for the first time. God gives us a new nature, and the Holy Spirit helps us to live as the Lord wants us to live. When we give Him control, we are no longer controlled by sin and darkness.
When April realized the truth about her salvation, she came to Christ and was set free from the things that had bound her. When people are deceived, they often turn away from Christ. However, while Satan does deceive many people, God is always able to set a person free. His power is stronger than anything else, and all the forces of darkness can never destroy Him.
